POPE HAS PHONE CALL WITH PUTIN SAME DAY TRUMP DOES

 

Pope has phone call with Putin same day Trump does

By Elise Ann Allen

•  

Jun 5, 2025

|Senior Correspondent

 

 

Pope Leo XIV appears on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican to bless the crowd below on May 11, 2025. (Credit: AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia.)

 

ROME – As tensions between Russia and Ukraine continue to escalate despite international efforts to broker a ceasefire, Pope Leo XIV Wednesday afternoon had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The pope’s phone conversation with Putin, confirmed by a Vatican spokesman late Wednesday night, came the same day that United States President Donald Trump had a call with the Russian president.

In a June 4 statement, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that during Pope Leo’s call with Putin, the leaders discussed “issues of mutual interest,” as well as the situation in Ukraine and peace efforts.

“The pope made an appeal to Russia to make a gesture that would promote peace and stressed the importance of dialogue for the establishment of positive contact between parties and for seeking solutions to the conflict,” Bruni said.

He said the humanitarian situation in Ukraine was discussed, highlighting the need “to provide aid where necessary,” as was ongoing negotiations for the exchange of prisoners and the importance of the work being done by Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, who was Pope Francis’s personal peace envoy to Ukraine, in this regard.

After being tapped as peace envoy to Ukraine in 2023, Zuppi made visits that summer to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington D.C., and Beijing, and he has continued to engage the various parties involved on issues such as prisoner exchanges, the facilitation of humanitarian aid, and the return of Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia.

During the call, Pope Leo also referred to the well-wishes he received from Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill at the start of his ministry and expressed gratitude, stressing “how common Christian values can be a light that helps to seek peace, defend life and to seek authentic religious freedom,” Bruni said.

The phone call between Leo and Putin came the same day that Trump spoke to the Russian president, marking their second conversation in a matter of weeks amid ongoing ceasefire negotiations.

Trump, who announced the call on his social media platform Truth Social, indicated there could be an escalation in hostilities in Ukraine, as Moscow was poised to respond to a recent drone attack by Ukraine that destroyed a swath of Russian war planes, including strategic bombers and various types of combat aircraft.

In his post, Trump said the conversation lasted 75-minutes and would not yield an immediate end to the war, and he also made no mention of pressuring Russia to agree to an unconditional ceasefire.

“We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides,” he said in the post, saying, “It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace.”

He said that Putin had indicated “very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.”

In reference to the Trump-Putin call, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said Ukraine’s strike on Russian airfields “was also touched upon,” but he did not indicate whether Putin had pledged a response to those attacks.

Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko in comments to CNN voiced concern that Trump was tacitly approving Russian retaliation with his casual description of the conversation, and the lack of any references to an appeal to stop the violence.

It is unclear what the “gesture that would promote peace” that Pope Leo asked Putin for consists of, but it is possible it could be a refrain from retaliation, or a willingness to consider an unconditional ceasefire accord.

Wednesday’s conversation between the pope and Putin marked the first conversation between the two since Leo’s election May 8.

Pope Leo, who made an appeal for peace in his first public remarks after being elected, held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy days after his election, and he met privately with Zelenskyy, who attended his May 18 inaugural Mass, later that afternoon, after the ceremony.

https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2025/06/pope-has-phone-call-with-putin-same-day-trump-does